Janet Rae-Dupree's NY Times column "Unboxed" continues to offer a monthly dose of, you could say, chicken soup for the CG soul. Two recent dispatches cover variations on a theme: 1) don't decide too soon and prematurely eliminate possibilities and 2) harness the power of improv and facilitate a "culture of yes"...

Can You Become a Creature of New Habits?
"It seems antithetical to talk about habits in the same context as creativity and innovation. But brain researchers have discovered that when we consciously develop new habits, we create parallel synaptic paths, and even entirely new brain cells, that can jump our trains of thought onto new, innovative tracks. ... A good innovational thinker is always exploring the many other possibilities.”

Can Executives Learn to Ignore the Script?
"And so the more spontaneously we respond — the more improvisational we are — the more likely we are to stumble across new and improved methods for resolving problems."

 
Two of life's most common questions are “What are you going to do when you grow up?” and “What do you do for a Job?”. New Zealander Jason Kemp answers, "I’m a polychronic creative generalist (and divergent thinking maven). Creative generalists rock the tesseract!" Click here to see what he means by that.

 
"Slowing down is essential to any kind of creativity — even if it makes you unfocused, inefficient, undisciplined, or unsystematic too," says Carmine Coyote at Slow Leadership. Five Ways to Boost Creativity — or Kill it Altogether.

(Thanks Leslie)

 
Check this out... New research [appearing in the Journal of Theoretical Biology] by scientists at Ohio State University suggests that societal duties do not need to be assigned by a division of labour (DoL) where every individual has a specific role. Researchers Anthony D'Orazio and Tom Waite argue that generalists have a definite role to play and that this holds true for environments as varied as a single cell, an ocean colony of sea anemones or even a small cookie business.

"What this modelling showed me is that there are conditions under which it actually helps to have some generalists, especially for fairly small groups, some individuals that you might think of as Jacks- or Jills-of-all-trades or multitaskers," said Waite. "You might actually have to pay them more and they might often do the wrong task, but if you don't have them, this whole notion of specialisation leading to greater economic productivity might actually be wrong."

These results go against some long held beliefs, even going back to Greek philosopher Plato, who argued that societies require specialisation to be productive and efficient.

 
I love this exchange from this Dearlove & Crainer Management-Issues interview with business strategy professor, consultant and author Richard D'Aveni. Asked about how relevant his academic insight is to real business situations, he zeros in on exactly the thing that spanning leaders - that is, leaders who are able to span multiple industries, disciplines, or cultures - can do which makes them important and influential, and which ultimately makes them even better leaders...

Why should executives, beset with all this turbulence and change, listen to someone like you, an Ivy League Professor - Joe Bowtie, if you like? How do you understand their world?
That's a good question -- executives should always ask their advisors that. I think the main reason is because I live in their world. OK, so I spend some time teaching at this idyllic place up here in the woods of New Hampshire. [The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.] And I tell the students and executives who come here these stories about strategy.

But where do you think the stories come from?
They come from my consulting with hundreds of companies, from my research. They're coming from practical experience, and the way I learn is by talking to lots of managers, finding out what their concerns are, what's happening in their lives, what's affecting their businesses. So it's really a story that doesn't just pop out of nowhere.

What I am is an importer and exporter of ideas. I import ideas from one marketplace to another. And I can see general trends that the average manager doesn't see, because I see what's going on in one industry and another industry and another industry, and I pull them together. [underline emphasis added - CG]

And that gives you a different perspective?
That's right. That importing and exporting role is really what I do that managers can't do for themselves. I can't know an industry better than a seasoned industry exec can. He or she has a lifetime of experience in it. What I can do is import and export much better than they can.

I don't live every day in just one world, but I show up often enough to find the right information, and I can take it somewhere else and I can sell it, just like any merchant would, travelling from one nation to another. And my ability to see those trends and to transport them across industry borders is really what I'm good at.

 
"Female Science Professor" recently posted an observation of a culture clash amongst science profs in a committee at her university. She noted that one particular issue seemed to transcend differences in scientific field, age, gender, race, or sanity level. The issue: whether one was focused or unfocused in their approach to academic research. She writes:

In the meeting today, some members of the Focused Group put forward the opinion that those who work on a wide range of topics tend to be 'too ambitious', 'too scattered', and 'superficial'. Some members of the Unfocused Group put forward the opinion that those who work on a specific, very focused topic are 'too narrow', 'can't see the Big Picture', and won't know what to do when that topic has been studied to extinction.

I should say that this was a very friendly discussion, and our disagreements were not expressed in a hostile way at all. Nevertheless, we found ourselves at an impasse, and have not yet found a way to reconcile these two different views to the extent of reaching a decision. ...Surely the answer is that the scientific community needs both kinds of scientists, ideally working together now and then. In our committee, however, we have to choose one species over the other, and that is difficult.

Focused or unfocused - that's a false choice (and university professional should know it). Specialists and generalists are the ultimate complements, and the real opportunity lies not in determining which one is better but rather in finding and fostering more ways for them to cooperate more completely and more often.

 
I read Dan Pink's latest book The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need cover-to-cover in less than 37 minutes. It's no A Whole New Mind or Free Agent Nation but then again it's no typical career advice book either. Working with illustrator Rob Ten Pas, Pink harnesses the kinetic, if sometimes ridiculous, energy of manga to drive home five sensible lessons for achieving a successful and happy career:
1. There is no plan.
2. Think strengths, not weaknesses
3. It's not about you
4. Persistence trumps talent
5. Make excellent mistakes
6. Leave an imprint

It's a perfect book for high schoolers trying to figure out how to pursue their skills and passions. More than the advice, though, what I really liked about Johnny Bunko was how it fused two different genres together - manga and career guides - to make something interesting and enjoyable. The story itself isn't groundbreaking, but the format is. So kudos to Pink and Penguin for that and especially for raising the bar significantly with the trailer they produced to push the book.

Johnny Bunko trailer from Daniel Pink on Vimeo
Very well done!

 
A great new ad for Discovery Channel:

Boom-dee-ada, boom-dee-ada, boom-dee-ada, boom-dee-ada...

(Thanks Clay)

 
Such a cute idea: YoungMe-NowMe! A Ze Frank photo challenge over at ColorWars.

(Thanks Åsk)

 
Al Gore recently updated his Inconvenient Truth presentation and premiered it at TED last month. It's well worth watching. In it he moves beyond making the case that climate change is real and important to challenging us to act with a sense of "generational mission" to set it right. This coincides, incidentally, with his launch of a three-year, $300 million climate change campaign, one of the most ambitious and costly public advocacy campaigns in U.S. history.

 
Generalists not wanted here - Larry Borsato at The Industry Standard writes about how "...in the Web 2.0 world we live in, where new products and APIs are introduced seemingly every other week, specialization loses its allure."

(Thanks Garrick)

 
The office at which I work, Airborne Mobile, is populated by an eclectic crew of seriously talented and not-so-seriously funny people. We have an opt-in internal email list called "Fun" and it's where the serial web link forwarders and jokesters post their "non-work" nonsense. I'm on it along with dozens of others - including one Tom Inoue, a senior graphic designer with whom I've had the pleasure to work with on a couple high-concept projects. He's a supremely skilled visual artist with a sharp eye and some major Photoshop chops. As it turns out, he's also got some impressive Google-fu when it comes to finding just the right completely random image for the moment.

Many months ago, someone started on the "Fun" list a series called "Friday's random picture." It was exactly that; a bizarre or compelling image with no context whatsoever. Sometimes it would garner a chuckle. One Friday, an image found at icanhascheezburger.com of a raccoon with outstretched arms was posted. Here it is:


Soon after, Tom quickly photoshopped the charming raccoon into a few baseball scenes.




This was amusing to some of us, so the gag continued. Tom followed up the umpire shots with a few other different ones - say, a Mission:Impossible scene and championship figure skating...


Then, taking up surfing...


Getting wet and parlaying that into iconic album art...


Working the curling, fringe festival, and summer birthday party circuits...



Delving into the arts...


Dominating at poker, foosball, and Olympic basketball...



And on it went with "the Safe Raccoon" somehow finding himself in a range of odd and hilarious scenarios. Our own traveling garden gnome. Oh yeah, here he is flying with Superman...

Anyways, I post this not just because it's good for a laugh but also because I think it's a fine example of being creative by recontextualizing something. It's a sort of unexpected improv; a riff, a remix, or maybe it's just an incredibly versatile raccoon!

[Tom's working on his personal website.]